the mind ceases
by seilleanmor
Summary: A one shot set in early season five, a few weeks after Secret's Safe With Me. A gift for Aisling, who deserves immeasurably more than this. M rated.


When you sleep with someone for the first time

you try to get under their skin and pry them open,

get into the hot red heat of them where the mind ceases

to exist and the heart takes over.

You're always afraid

you'll go too far,

or not far enough.

_**sleeping with someone**_**, writingsforwinter**

* * *

For Aisling.

Darling, you are the touch of dawn to inky sky, hope and light. I love you.

* * *

**the mind ceases**

* * *

"So if Todd knew about the money, he must have also known about the affair." Castle says, thinking out loud.

Kate snatches his idea and runs with it. So good, the way it works between the two of them. "_Right_. I'd call that motive, wouldn't you?"

"Absolutely. And we already know he's got means. You saw the guy; he totally could have strangled her. Probably could have _snapped_ her if he really wanted."

Beckett grins, taking a step closer. Close enough that the heat of her body comes in to touch his, delicious fingers coaxing him in to her. "And his alibi was thin at best. I bet we can crack him."

"Oh yeah, we got him."

Castle watches her eyes trip down to his mouth, her own lips parting. Her tongue works over her teeth, slipping out to wet her bottom lip. Kate sucks in a tremulous breath, her lashes drifting like shadows, and he just can't help himself.

He leans in, his forehead crashing against hers so her eyes startle open. "Kate."

"We're at work." She murmurs, even as her hands come up to fist in his shirt. Creasing the material, but no matter. Not as if anyone's going to see.

His soft laughter seems to get caught in the space between them, curling in wisps at the hollow of her throat, along the crag of his jaw. "No one's here. No one at all."

"They might come back." Kate whispers, her mouth skirting his just enough that the taste of her is virulent, narcotic. And she knows it, arches her neck to take from him more insistently.

Rick grunts, delights in the ripple of awareness down her spine, his fingers splayed to keep her close. "It's almost two. Shifts start at six. We're good."

"Good for what?" She arches an eyebrow and Castle smirks, leaning in to catch the paper-thin skin of her eyelid between his teeth. A quiet whimper spills up from her and her hips nudge against his, her nails sharp even through his shirt.

"Do you know how sexy your brain is?"

Her laugh is heaven-sent, a husky rasp he's heard so many times with her under him, above him, felt it rattle against the press of his lips to her throat. Still, still, it gets him. He growls, moving for her mouth with no pretence.

Like silk, her tongue slicks against his, clattering over the roof of his mouth as she cradles his cheek, her other hand coming up to card through his hair over and over. Castle clutches at her hips, tugs her tight against him.

Tight enough that she can feel, already, just how badly he burns for her. It's always been this, the precinct, the way her mind works, that does it for him more than anything. And now he knows exactly what she tastes like, how her skin feels under his hands, what she sounds like when she comes.

Restraint is. . .difficult. Now, when she glances at him as the boys update her and her eyes are dark, her cheeks flushed, he can't help but think about how gorgeous her skin is in the moonlight, acres of gossamer for him to map out.

He loves the little freckle under her eye, the patch of dry skin behind her left knee, the crescent-shaped inky blue of a vein at her hip. Places of interest on the roadmap of his worship. Sometimes he likes to stretch her out on his sheets, have her lie there creamy and perfect against the grey silk and let him detail every dip and plane and arch of her body.

Sometimes (_now_) he just needs her. Hard and fast and clothes still half-on.

"I've always wanted to have you against the murder board." He grins into the arch of her neck, raking his teeth over her pulse and sucking.

"_Have_ me?"

He pulls back far enough to laugh, taking a moment to lave at her earlobe. "Bang you?"

"Hmm, better." She says, breathless already. Her hands are somehow, magically, inside of his button down and skimming his sides.

Castle plants his hands at her hips and nudges her backwards, distracting her with the touch of his mouth until her spine bumps up against the murder board. Wrapping a hand around her thigh, he tugs until her knee comes up around his hip and he can rock against her.

She groans, her head falling back, and bites at her lip. Huh. Still trying to keep quiet, even though there's no one that can possibly hear them. Sexy how she does that, the blanch of colour from her mouth as she battles to keep it back.

"Just say yes, Kate. I know you want this."

Kate brings her hands up to cling at his ears, the cup of her palms filling him up with the ocean, the crash of waves against the shore and the dull roar of its sucking power. So much that he only half hears her answer, her voice an eddy in the wind. "Yes. I want this."

"Mm, Kate." He sets his grin at the crag of her jaw, laying claim to the gossamer skin there. But carefully. She'll let him mark her chest, her collar bones, her inside thigh, but God help him if he leaves a hickey someplace she can't cover it up.

Shifting up to her mouth, Castle sucks at her tongue and still, even now, marvels at the livewire of her body, how she turns molten in his arms. Electricity sparks with every brush of their skins, trailing from her fingertips as she drags them up his spine.

"Castle. If we're going to have hot, frantic sex against the murder board, would you wipe it down first?"

He splutters, detaching his mouth from her clavicle to stare at her. "Kills the moment, don't you think?"

"I don't want dry erase marker all over my shirt." Kate smirks at him, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

She thinks this is a deterrent for him? Ha! Double ha.

"You won't be wearing a shirt."

Whatever it takes, consider it already done, Katherine Beckett. He's talking high level fantasies here, the stuff he spent two years thinking about as he came against the walls of his shower and tried not to grunt her name. Maybe keep that an inside thought, though.

His ego is fragile enough when it comes to sex with Kate. She doesn't need more fodder to mess with him.

"You're not taking my shirt off. I feel like we're being watched."

"Okay _fine_. Let me take a picture first so we can put it all back." He tugs his phone free from his jacket pocket, ushering Kate around to his side and keeping her there with an arm slung around her shoulders.

She grunts at him, her elbow clashing at his ribs, but he's not letting go. She can wait two seconds for the damn camera application to focus, surely. Unless she's already so riled up she needs to have him right now, marker pen stains be damned.

Castle chances a look at her face, sees her scowling at him. A good deal of annoyance, but he can see the inky trails of lust in her eyes, the flush to her cheeks that means she wants him _bad_.

Mm, sexy Kate.

All the time, every day, he wants to have her. Only fair that he's sometimes able to do the same to her.

Rick presses the button to shut off his cell phone, the click sending a shuddered frisson of pleasure through Beckett. Reaching for the dry eraser, he begins the measured removal of their case from the board.

And he knows, he _knows_, that his button down is stretched tight across his shoulders, the sleeves clinging to his biceps. He also knows that his body, the breadth of his chest and plane of his abdomen, is both a cove and a source of endless desire for Kate.

Kate, who is his girlfriend. Kate, who bumps her hips up against his ass and slides her fingers to lace around his waist. Kate, who needs him perhaps just as much as he needs her.

"Hurry up." She breathes into the shell of his ear, the very tip of her tongue tracing over where it's most tender. Castle reaches back to curve his free hand around her ass, tugging her closer still.

"Stop distracting me and it'll get done a lot quicker."

A moment of stillness as she considers this revelation, and then she seems to decide that she doesn't care. Her hands come up, nimble fingers unfastening the first button of his shirt before he even gets the chance to suck in a fortifying breath.

By the time the board is clean, his shirt is gaping open and Kate's hands are fisted in the hem of his undershirt, trying to tug it up over his head. He grins, tossing the dry eraser across the room and turning her around to back her up against the board.

It's a little twisted, he knows that. Probably says things about him that he'd rather not inspect too closely, but he won't deny it.

Murder turns him on.

Well, more specifically, the unfathomable work of Beckett's brain as she solves one. The flint in her eyes as the pieces come together, the surge of her body into action. And usually, that action is their next step, an arrest or an interrogation or another visit to the crime scene.

But tonight, he gets to take that energy, the pounding arrhythmia of adrenaline, and use it to make her limp against him.

"Does this meet your requirements?" He grits out, punctuated with the insistent roll of his hips against hers.

Kate smirks, her ankle hooking around the back of his thigh as she curls her hands around his shoulders, sliding down his biceps to draw his shirt off. It pools at their feet and he kicks it aside, tries valiantly not to stumble as Beckett pulls his undershirt over his head.

"Getting better."

She's laughing at him, circling his nipples with her fingertips and skating her nails down his pectorals, free-falling to the waistband of his slacks. Castle wraps his fingers at her wrists and leans in to kiss her softly, forging an amniotic moment of tenderness.

"You sure this is okay?"

Kate breaks open on a grin, slow in its seduction, and lifts her hands to cup his cheeks. "I'm sure. Fuck me against the murder board, Castle."

Her tongue snakes out in that teasing smile and he goes for her mouth, smudges her laughter with the touch of their lips and brings his teeth in to it, sharp enough that Kate's whole body jolts. Her hips roll tighter and tighter still against his own and he nudges a knee between her thighs, stifles a grunt as she sinks down onto him.

Castle touches the tip of his finger to the seam of her mouth, moaning softly as she sucks on it. Her teeth graze at his knuckle and he lifts his knee, his palm wrapping at her shoulder. "Jesus Christ, Kate."

Even through her slacks and his own, he feels the slick heat of her. And he wants, so badly, to have his mouth on her. But there's just no way to make it work.

Not against the board. He'd lift her, have her ankles laced behind his neck and hold her up with the sheer and unyielding force of his desire, but she doesn't like that. She says it keeps her distracted, too worried that he'll drop her to really enjoy it.

Kate likes to have leverage, the opportunity to take over when she pleases. Something other than his face to brace herself against.

"Something you'd like, Castle?" Beckett hums, letting his finger go with this _obscene_ noise that shoots straight to his gut, tangling there. "Want me to suck you off in front of the murder board?"

"_Kate_."

"You wanna be in my mouth?" She raises an eyebrow at him, sinking to her knees achingly slow. Slow enough that he can hold her gaze the whole time, watch her inky pupils leach into the scattered autumn of her iris, her eyes turning to midnight.

He cradles her skull, his thumb smoothing over her cheekbone. "Only if you want to."

"I want to. This is. . .not a fantasy you're alone in, Castle."

Kate bites her lip, delicious tendrils of concentration unravelling all through her as she goes for his zipper. He feels the torturous catch and release of every tooth as she drags it down, soaring up to pop the button on his slacks and have them pool at his ankles, his boxers following suit.

Apparently there's no time for him to step out of them, Beckett's mouth already on him even as he tries to untangle his foot.

Shit, _shit_, Kate. She presses her lips to him, drawing her tongue along the stark purpling-blue of a vein before she takes him in her mouth.

The rake of her teeth, the tight, sucking heat, the thundering vibrato of her throaty chuckle, all of it conspires against him until his hands curl into fists and his breath hisses through his teeth as he battles not to just thrust and thrust and not ever stop.

Beckett watches him through the smoky haze of her eyelashes, the day's makeup worn off so they seem suddenly so fragile. He tangles his fingers in the spill of her curls, managing a smile through the chokehold of lust.

And then she swallows and he sputters, gritting his teeth and clutching at her shoulders to tug her off of him. "Kate, please. I want to be inside you."

"You _were_ just inside me." She raises an eyebrow, so devastatingly sexy that Castle has to tug her to her feet, plundering her mouth with tongue and teeth both.

Arching onto tiptoe, the whole stretch of Kate's thighs aligns with his own, her hips nesting against his. He battles his way inside of her pants, nudging her underwear aside to curl his fingers into the slick heat of her, a gasp that consumes her whole body and she shudders against him.

"This really _does_ do it for you, huh?" Castle grins, chasing her mouth. Hers is open against his chin, her breath made liquid there.

God, he needs her. Enough teasing.

He said a couple weeks ago he wanted to give her a long, slow kiss (and when she got home, boy did he ever) but right now he needs to have her, hard and a little brutal and somehow still tender. Always tender between them, even when she's got him cuffed to her headboard or blindfolded or any of the myriad other little tricks she has to blow his mind.

Sliding two fingers inside her, Castle circles her clit with his thumb, that feather-light touch that drives her crazy, and catches her earlobe between his teeth. Kate grunts, working her hips against his fingers and he presses his grin at the storm of her pulse as she rides his hand.

She tightens around him, her breath like keening as she chants his name, so close. His fingers curl, seeking to help her, and her forehead crashes against his collar bone as she falls apart.

He gives her a moment to catch her breath, his free hand tucking her hair back so he can see her face, dust his mouth at her cheek, the slope of her nose, her lips. "You okay?"

"Yeah." She laughs, flushed with her orgasm. So utterly beautiful, even under the harsh sterility of the precinct lights. Castle cups her cheeks in his palms and kisses her mouth, grinning into it.

Unhooking the button of Kate's slacks, Rick tugs them down her thighs and turns her around. A soft gasp of surprise falls past her lips and she nudges her ass back into him.

He's painfully hard, now, and having her hips rolling in the cradle of his own because she wants him so badly she can't keep still is _really_ not helping. She's wearing purple cotton underwear, and he's not ashamed to admit that that in itself does it for him. And the fact that he picked these out for her, sat at the edge of her bed and watched her pull them on this morning-

The thought, the memory, has him rushing to curl his fingers in the waistband and yank them down until they join her slacks in a puddle at their feet.

Much like his self-control.

He parts her thighs with the press of his knee, his hands bracketing her waist to guide her. Kate braces her forearms against the murder board – and he's inordinately grateful that the board in the break room is secured to the wall – and arches her back, opening herself to him.

Castle bends to lift her shirt and press a hot kiss to her lumbar curve, suckling at her skin until she grunts and glances over her shoulder at him.

"_Castle_."

"Hmm?" He smirks, straightening up and taking himself in hand. He nudges against her, waits it out until he feels the roar of her growl tearing through her and then he slides inside.

Slowly, achingly so, because this is Kate's favourite part. That first moment of solid connection, the twining of their bodies. That first night, the first time he felt the tight, burning sheath of her body, she cried.

Yeah, okay, so did he.

The crash of Kate's ass against his thighs sends a jolt clattering through his bloodstream as he remembers where he is, drawing back and plunging inside of her again. He almost wishes he could see her face but this, his mouth sucking hard at her top vertebrae, is equally wonderful.

Castle thrusts harder, the moans spilling out of Kate's throat sparking the first chords of release in his gut. Jesus _Christ_, he hopes she's close.

The way she moves against him, the growling tenor of his name and the desperate rolling of her hips thread together to weave around them both, a connection unlike any he's ever felt before. Even with his wives, it was never this intense.

Because never, ever, has he been with a woman and known in the most visceral parts of himself that the creamy skin of her spine is the setting of his forever.

The thought is like a gathering storm, tension lacing his whole body so he jerks, helpless as a marionette. He slides his hand down between them, his fingers brushing where they're joined as he circles her clit. Beckett groans, half-turning over her shoulder to crash her mouth against his. She sinks her teeth into his lower lip and goes utterly, totally still. And then he thrusts, hard, and Kate comes undone in his arms.

She tightens around him, choked gasps spilling desperately up from her, and Castle stops trying to hold on. Bliss tears through him, white hot and perfect, and he grunts into her mouth as he spills inside her.

The moment he opens his eyes, Kate's turning in the cove of his body and arching up to kiss him, laughter bubbling just underneath the surface of her skin. "Wow."

"Yeah. Wow."

* * *

Some of the thrill wears off as Castle sits on the break room couch, watching Kate writing up the murder board and turning to roll her eyes at him every few minutes. He shrugs, struggling to even fake apology.

So totally worth it, Kate Beckett.

* * *

**A/N: With thanks to Chloe for her wonderful motivational song (check my tumblr) and the rest of the midnight club for fielding my incessant questions about appropriate terminology. I'd bang all of you against the murder board and I would not even be sorry.**

**Tumblr: **katiehoughton

**Twitter: **seilleanmor


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